AnDy_68

Hi Does anybody know if it is possible to make a living growing olives in Portugal? any help would be much appreciated!

macliam

Scale?

Everyone around me grows olives for their own/family use. Almost all wineries also produce olive oil, North to South - so who would be your target customers?

AnDy_68

Really don't Know, only just started looking into it,,been wanting to move from the uk for years and have a different life style just don't know where to start!

MrBife

A bonkers idea even assuming you were to inherit a few square miles of established olive grove for free + you found an eccentric billionaire to donate the machinery you would still struggle to make enough to cover irrigation, pest control, maintenance, production costs and manpower and still have money for any kind of 'living'.

https://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/sample-costs
Olives To Olive Oil - Hobby Farms
http://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/up...nc_cc_2011.pdf

Welcome to the forum by the way

AnDy_68

Your honesty is a breath of fresh air, thank you so much and also for the links. Looks like i need to look in a different direction!

mfesharne

Quite honestly a significant number of people come to Portugal with the dream of earning a living from the soil and/or being self sufficient and/or setting up some kind of commune or eco lodge and pretty much all of 'em fail dismally.

MrBife

'Stick to what you know' and you won't go far wrong,

gedscottish

A family in my town recently built massive green houses(& got a grant to do so, I heard they had to put down 100k & got a further 400k of a grant) and they're growing Hydroponic Strawberries, apparently it's a massive success.

liveaboard

Farming is a knowledge based business; you need to know a lot to succeed in growing a sellable crop and make a profit on it.
Especially marketing; you need to know how to sell it before you start planting.
There was a farmer near me growing strawberries for years; his crop looked great and he did well. This was a specialized operation, high labor inputs, high investment.
Then one year the distribution company told him they had their own production now, and they didn't want his crop. He dumped 300kg of ripe strawberries in the trash and was bankrupt.

Farming is not a low stress business. There are a hundred things that can ruin you, profits are low, hours are long. The big guys spread out their risks, are insured and subsidized.
With the exception of the farmer, everyone on the production and distribution chain is guaranteed a wage.

gedscottish

I dare say you know what you are talking about and some of these farming ventures may sound good in theory but as I have a friend who does the shitake mushrooms(in a very similar situation to your strawberry guy) and a friend who makes red wine(could not produce enough to feed the demand and now he can't give it away) and taking into account I'm way too lazy for that carry on, I've never even considered farming for more than 5 minutes, so for what land we have we rent it out and grow trees on rest.

macliam

One of my first questions was "who would be the target customers?". If you don't have a robust answer to that, don't start. Producing stuff may not be easy, but shifting it on a reliable basis and at a profit is close to black magic. Producing stuff you and your friends like, or where you've managed to sell a few boxes, is great but it's not sustainable.

Another thing is the physical impact of intensive production. Olive trees for oil production have a very limited lifespan, so there's a need for regular re-investment. Likewise, soft fruits require an inordinate amount of water - so you need access to and rights to extract from a reliable water source. No water, no fruit.

Finally there's the wonderful prospect of disease specificity - if you get a "nasty", it can wipe out your entire crop. It can also require cleansing and re-planting - more re-investment.

As Liveaboard said "Farming is a knowledge based business" and that knowledge and experience doesn't come cheap.

AnDy_68

Just wanted to thank everyone for the replys, cant say im not a bit dissapointed but better off finding out now before i did anything daft.
Im a mechanical engineer by trade so maybe i'l look for something along them lines!. thanks again

mfesharne

Portugal is a great place to live but not so great if you need to earn a living here.

Unemployment is so high in my area there's a young lady working as a shelf stacker in my local supermarket who is a fully qualified pharmacist.